The adoption of the 2022 Children Act paved the way for a raft of changes intended to promote the welfare of the young.

Among them is the gradual phasing out of the Children Care Institutions (CCI) and reintegrate the children into the community.

The reforms are to be implemented over 10 years, meaning that by 2032, all private children’s homes will have been closed down.

The Act requires each county to have a rescue centre that will function as a transitional home for children who need protection and care.

Alternative care

Stakeholders from various government agencies and children’s welfare organisations have been sensitising communities on the changes, as well as championing alternative family care for these children.
This is aimed at encouraging citizens to embrace foster care and the adoption of the children now living in CCIs.

It is more beneficial for children to grow up in the community, compared with having them confined at institutional homes, said Janet Mwema, an officer with the National Council for Children’s Services.
Reintegration, she said, will help them get a sense of self-awareness and the ability to associate with others when they become of age and move out of institutional homes.

“The Children Act is aimed at promoting alternative family care for the children in charitable homes to have them reintegrated back to the society,” said Mwema.

Some children’s homes were previously in the spotlight for violating the rights of minors, with cases of child trafficking, child labour and sexual assault being reported.

The ultimate goal is to ensure no child is left in any charitable home by 2032, said Loyd Isadia, the lead officer in the team implementing alternative family care reforms.

Life skills

The team, he said, is championing foster care for these children, a system that will help them integrate into the community so that they can gain more life skills.

“We are out to sensitise the community on foster care, which is mostly practised in the West, and encourage more people to embrace it,” he said.

Nationally, he added, there are 4,021 children in foster care, with a few counties – including Murang’a, Kiambu, Kirinyaga, Meru and Embu – already embracing the programme.

Foster care is temporary custody or guardianship for a child whose parents are dead or unable to take care of them. The maximum period for foster parenting is three years. The permit allowing a guardian to stay with the a child is renewed annually.

In instances when foster parenting needs to be extended, a court can grant it for a certain period of time.
More than 50,000 children, Isadia said, live in childcare institutions and need to be placed in foster care and other forms of family care.

“Besides foster parenting, we have other forms of family care, among them kinship care and adoption,” said Isadia.

Interested parents have been undergoing training on positive parenting and then given certificates to allow them to become foster parents.

“We are looking for more prospective foster parents [to] help us in our reform agenda so that we place with them children who cannot be placed with the families of origin,” he said.